The family can be such a mysterious forest.  We navigate its many trails often unable to see the “trees” for the forest that is all around us.  We do not see when we take on and carry a burden of guilt or sadness from a parent or grandparent—or even a sibling.  We do not see the invisible links of love and loyalty that exist—and that can keep us from moving forward in life.

For the past twelve years I’ve been working in this forest, helping others to see their way out.  The work is called Family Constellation Work.  It is a group process that uses representatives to stand in for past or existing family members.  By moving representatives physically into the circle, we are able to make visible what has been invisible.  The constellation is profound, often moving, and sometimes uncanny in its ability to show us how to release old, non-useful patterns.

The first constellation I stood in as a representative was for a woman who said that she and her two sons could not hold on to their money.  They made money—they just didn’t seem to keep it.  This was my first time viewing a constellation being set up and worked on.  The facilitator was a German who later became my teacher.

But let me tell you what the woman learned from setting up her own constellation.  It turned out that her grandfather was a rancher during the depression era.  He was a smart guy who managed to keep his ranch when all around him others were failing.  He began to buy up his neighbors ranches for a dirt cheap price.  His ranch grew and prospered.  The more his neighbors failed, the more he succeeded.  He built his enormous ranch based on the losses of others.  Now, two generations later, his grandsons cannot hang onto their money.  As we watched the constellation unfold, we learned that the grandsons do not have the right to “atone” for the actions of their grandfather.  A series of movements were made within the constellation that released the grandsons from this past action.

In a more recent workshop that I was facilitating, I worked with this beautiful 17-year-old girl who had been given almost more than she could handle from life. The first young love of her life was murdered.  After he died, she discovered that she was pregnant, but the baby was a tubular pregnancy–she lost the child. In 12 years of doing this work, I have never seen such a young soul quite that frozen in grief. It raises goosebumps on my arms just to recall it. In my early interview with her—every constellation begins with a fact finding mission—she said that she was cold throughout her body, that  she could never seem to get warm.  She also said that she has absolutely no sympathy or compassion for anybody.

This constellation was very difficult—and she was so brave to decide to do it. She (her representative) faced her lost love and the lost child within the safe field of the constellation.  An enormous amount of rage rushed out, and then tears, and then love, and then release.  It was amazing to watch.  I think that the coldness of her body was coming from her trying to follow her love and lost child into death.

How many of our young suicides are actually the person following a loved one into death?  I can’t answer that question, but my experience with constellation work tells me it is probably more than we can imagine.

Those of you who have not yet seen the depth and authenticity of this way of working with the generational wounds of a family may want to look for an opportunity to attend a demonstration.  We know from experience that any explanation of how this work unfolds and its potential to heal ancient (and current) wounds is just too difficult to explain.  The work itself best demonstrates the work.  There is also no way to explain the “high” that comes when the release happens and love again is flowing in the core of the family.  We all gain something from the work of others.

Essentially, Family Constellation Work is the best of family systems science coming together with the deeper soul of the family itself.  Our goal is to introduce myself and this work into your area in preparation of future workshops.  You have probably been sent this invitation by a friend, family member, or colleague.  This is a no risk event.  We will take donations (no set charge) and thank you when you bring friends along to experience this powerful way of working

Please feel free to share this message with others who you feel may be ready to find the sturdy trees standing in their family forest.   We hope that you can join us.

One of my favorite current projects is my little “bead people” peace project.  I create little thumb-sized people out o fbeads and put them together with a story I created that promotes peace and tolerance.  Although outwardly I am pushing “tolerance and acceptance” for others, the real secret behind this “peace project” is what happens when we create something.  Whenever I sit down to help a child or adult create a bead person, we enter that wonderful space of creating.  Our worries scatter to the four winds, our score keeping ceases, our problem-solving obsessions take a hike.  There is no agenda, no big whoop, just the fun of taking raw materials and shaping them into something nice.

The real “peace” in my peace project is that inner feeling that we get when we create.  If we all had a lot more of that, our world would indeed be a peaceful place.

Try something simple.  Choose a tiny little project that you want to do.  It might be cooking a nice dinner, chopping a carrot, selecting a corner of your house to beautify or organize. Create a nice image of that thing having been accomplished.  Then take stock of current reality and either make a list or set of steps to get from one (current reality) to the other (the thing you want).  Then do it.

The most important part of this exercise is not in deciding the “what you want” or even the steps between that and the current reality, but what happens to you as you create this thing you want.  The process of creating doesn’t really have much to do with what or how we create.  It is the feeling you get as you are fully engaged in the creative process.  This is worth so much more than even the end result of our project.  It seems so sad to me that many of us are so focused on the end result (the creation) that we miss the process of creating that can bring such peace, even bliss, when we let it.

What did you feel as you were creating?  Did you give yourself the time to enjoy it?  Did your mind stay quiet for a while and let you simply enjoy being and creating?  What if you were to spend hours every day in this state?  Wow.

The other day I was coaching a beautiful woman who has overcome many hardships to take her place in the world as a peacemaker.  Mary wants to make a contribution to her community.  She is a black woman who was raped by her stepbrothers and pretty much left to fend for herself in the world.  She is quite remarkable in her recovery from these events.  Now she works with others who have been in jail, have used their bodies to make a living, and who have been in the dark corners of life.

In talking with Mary, I could hear her ongoing resentment of those she has worked with who seem to float to the next level while she is infused with passion but unable to support herself financially.   Mary has been given many opportunities to train in various models to rehabilitate and restore justice where justice has gone wrong.  I asked her if she could consider for a moment that all of those people who trained her and helped her were her PhD. program in life.  The great thing is that she has no school loans--just the degree.  She thought a moment and suddenly found a way to be grateful to all of those who had helped her go forward from the darkness she had been in.

The next time I went to Mary's she had created an appreciation collage filled with specific thank-yous to specific people. She had filled her board with hearts and puffy pink letters spelling out her gratitude.  All of her jealousy and resentment had been transformed into something fresh with possibility.  Both the act of creating the board and the act of rethinking her debt to these people had brought her peace.

One of the things I want to do with this weekly post (my goal for 2011) is to not just throw around pretty words suggesting we get along, but to show specific ways that we can achieve the state of peace within our own hearts and in the world.  Peace is a state of being--not an action, not a thing, not even a process.  It begins inside.  If we were to break down major wars and violent events, we would find the seeds for that violence in single thoughts and patterns of behavior driven by thoughts.  We need to learn to manage our own thoughts first.  Who do we resent?  Who do we direct anger or jealousy at?  How kind are we to our own selves?

Just in the past week we had a shooting in a school in Nebraska and a shooting of a public servant in Arizona.  People died.  Violence is followed by more fear--and less peace.  In both cases, we can find the roots of the violence in the thoughts of a single person.  Sad.  Who will help us manage our thoughts?  How can we help each other manage thoughts that morph into action?

Be kind to yourself first.

A couple of years ago two classes at a South Dakota Alternative High School got involved with The Bead People.  Over several weeks the students, ninth graders, built 160 Bead People to use as a give away for the students, teachers, and staff at their final picnic for the school year.  The project was initiated by a Restorative Justice person who fell in love with The Bead People project.

What was so interesting to me was what actually happened with these students who have had so much difficulty fitting in and making it in a mainstream classroom.  They are a spirited, rebellious, creative . . . and often wounded bunch.  There is a lot of anger, but when we would show up and lay out trays of beautiful beads, all of that spread-out wily energy would find its focal point in the creative act of building a new Bead Person.

Creating—the process of—is an act of peace.  I think there is something so vitally important in this single statement.  It is so obvious we often miss it.  Even the toughest of young men in our group were drawn into creating.  One young man’s Bead Person was such a work of art that I asked if I could have it.  (See image.)

The dynamic human urge is a creative, vibrant energy WILL OUT.  The energy itself does not care what it creates as long as it is creating.  It will be a constructive force or, lacking guidance and direction, a destructive force.  The energy of creating and the energy that directs learning are the same.  Humans just plain like to figure things out.  Our brain-based friends would explain to us in great detail that challenging creative or learning tasks that are just hard enough to make us stretch and reach actually expand the neural networks of the brain.  The tree-like structures, dendrites, are forced to stretche their finger-like structures out to connect with others of their kind.  New learning connects with previous learning in an exciting and expansive way.  And not only that, when the brain is engaged in this way, it is flooded with feel good endorphins.  Can you imagine?  We actually get “high” from creating and learning new things.

This brings me to a big question (and I like big questions).  My goal this year is to create several lesson plans that could be used in the classroom by teachers or group leaders of different levels.  My dilemma is this.  How can I create activities that do not “teach” peace and tolerance for others but have students engage in and experience the act of peace.  I want students to learn more about their own endless reserve of creative energy and the dynamic urge to learn that IS an act of peace when we engage it.

I think children must feel beat over the head with what we think they should learn and know.  These 2X4 clunks have become a barrier to the natural human love of creating and learning.

• Outdoor play is now EXERCISE
• Eating good food is now NUTRITIONAL TRAINING
• Family fun is now QUALITY TIME and DIALOGUE
• Natural Curious Inquiry is now STUDY TO THE STANDARDS
• Learning is now PERFORMANCE

I want the Bead People to be a strong example of and activator for creating, learning, peacemaking, and not just another club that “teaches tolerance, anti-bullying, or global politics. I have a few ideas and could use your help to discover others.  Here are my main lesson planning guides.

• Use Storytelling to engage, share, expand
  
• Get Hands On with The Bead People projects
• Find some music and dance to add to The Bead People projects
• Use The Bead People as a stepping off place for new learning
• Create lessons that build bridges of connection to self, family, earth, community and the global family.

Those are my ideas.  I’m already putting some of them into action.  I would love your ideas and thoughts and activities to add to The Bead People peace project.  And naturally, if you don’t have yours yet, you need to hustle into the store and get one.

I’ll be waiting to hear from you.

Jamie Lee

1. Read The Wind of a Thousand Years 

2. Take the Bead People Pledge 

3. Buy or Build a Bead Person

4. Share our Film

5. Share our Story with Others 

6. Tell us who and where you are 

7. Build Three, give two away.

8. Host a Bead People Gathering at your church, conference, classroom, etc. 

9. Run a Bead People Foreign Exchange Program (This is for both children OR adult groups)

10. Oh Yes--sign onto the Peace Blog or Join Our Facebook Fan Page
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